OST of the damage done by insects to grain in storage 
and shipments is due to four species. These are the 
granary weevil, the rice or black weevil, the lesser 
grain borer or Australian weevil, and the Angoumois grain 
moth. Others of the 40 species or groups of species described 
in this bulletin can cause great damage to grain if storage 
conditions are unusually favorable for their increase. Yet if 
grain in the unbroken kernel remains unaffected by the four 
insects mentioned, it is not likely, in commercial storage or 
shipments, to be sufficiently affected by other insects to 
cause appreciable loss. These four pests live throughout 
their larval life entirely within the kernel, where they feed 
unseen, usually unsuspected, and where they can not be 
reached by the ordinary methods employed by grain men in 
their grain-cleaning operations known to the trade as moy- 
ing, fanning, and screening. 
The other pests discussed, with few exceptions, are “ sur- 
face feeders.” Their larvae may eat into kernels of grain 
and lie hidden there, yet the greater proportion of them are 
found feeding upon broken surfaces of kernels exposed 
either by mechanical injuries to the grain in handling or by 
the feeding of the four major grain pests with which they 
are usually associated. 
The larve, or grubs, of the four major pests mentioned 
are not ordinarily capable of a free existence outside the 
kernel but the larve of the other grain pests are, in the main, 
capable of free locomotion, crawling where they will 
throughout grain in bulk, and are therefore susceptible to 
removal by fanning and screening. Methods of preventing 
infestation of grain and of treating infested grain are dis- 
cussed briefly. . 
